A Wild Surmise

Oh, Dr. Surgeon

199 Oh, Dr. Surgeon cuidado because what if my wrist locks in place like a rusty gate and whatever I have in mind can’t get through, whatever I try to hold can’t catch. What if the hinge there is too old to repair and forever after all my shirts will not tuck right, drying off with a towel will hurt me hurt me, drying my hair will hurt and pulling up the covers hurt and worse, everything I go to touch will have to be thought through, thought through even when there is a vocabulary of impulse right there is in the air at the end of my fingers, stories spun by the little bones in their tiny dance. It is not enough to speak, you know. It is not enough to have the words to say things. There is that moment, you know, when something has to hang in the air. Hang in the air for a moment, and turn not on the tip of the tongue, the pointed slippery tongue, but here en el diccionario de mis dedos, las palabras huesudos clicking cumulative as a litany, running repetitive and desperate to find a saint still awake to gesture, someone who in the past has worked miracles with the touch of her hand and can still identify with the little needs of the living, a saint of small things like The Little Flower, who understands dusting and folding, who probably hurt herself and dipped her hand in Holy Water or cried out just a little and then only in private if I could pray anymore I would return to the rosary because it is filled with wood and jewels, because I carried my grandmother’s in my pocket like a talisman for years, because even with a simple string you can make one if both of your hands work, because when I can’t sleep I can repeat the prayers attached to suffering, to joy, to memory, to the blessedness of what comes around again, familiar and whole. ...